


A Pair of Clamps (to Help Those On The Fly)

by stellarbuffoonery



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Apologies, Devastated John Watson, Emotional, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Eventual Happy Ending, Heavy Angst, Hurt John Watson, John Watson Needs A Hug, John is a Mess, Light Angst, M/M, Past Character Death, Pining, Pining John, Post-Minisode: Many Happy Returns, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Reichenbach Feels, Sad Sherlock Holmes, Sad and Happy, Sherlock Apologizes, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes Returns after Reichenbach, Sherlock Holmes Takes Care of John Watson, Sherlock is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25169014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarbuffoonery/pseuds/stellarbuffoonery
Summary: 《An alternate take on Sherlock's return from the dead.》The man’s lungs must have been hungry for he took a seep-like breath, right before a familiarly timbre sound. A silken, cultured voice said, “John.”Thus, to cave in wasn’t so bad when you thought about it. His knees gave way, floorboards welcoming.Let the gravity take you..
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking of multiple chapters though the plot is still developing. Thus, for now, you're getting a little glimpse of this upcoming slight-dismal of a fiction. Sorry about the wintry tone.  
> 
> 
> À bientôt!

Sherlock was at the door. 

What was one supposed to do when they were on the fly?

The only thing John could manage was to stand, all taut mien. His limbs felt cold. His right hand was still holding the edge of the door. Fingertips were not enough sinewy to penetrate themselves through the wood as if his circulation just evaporated, vascular access deprived of corpuscles, only left with plasma to freeze him to death - a quasi anaemi. No strength to the body. Haemoglobine concentration might as well be below 10.0 g/dl. That would explain the sudden need of giving in to gravity, to cave in.

The amber light of the staircase was catching Sherlock's swirls of hair, flaring through tiny locks, making his entire semblance a dark silhouette. His face wasn’t the luminous in this twilit room of Baker Street but John could still make out his facade even if little, those aurora crystal eyes never failing to seize and reflect the perfect radiance. The man’s lungs must have been hungry for he took a seep-like breath, right before a familiarly timbre sound.

A silken, cultured voice said, “John.”

Thus, to cave in wasn’t so bad when one thought about it, John’s frosty brain concluded. His knees gave way, floorboards welcoming.

_Let the gravity take you..._

A pair of strong clamps of sort stopped him going down, helped him, then held him against a very warm, heaving wall of something. A chest. Those clamps were tiddering his back, going to and fro. Slowly, strokingly, the motion restarting some of the blood flow his body lacked. A tremour ran through the muscles on his thighs, slacking them as a calid breath blown on top of his hair tingled its way down his right ear. His neck cringed and cried to be lifted but his eyes disagreed, closed themselves and demanded to be stay dropped. As if they somehow knew if he peered them open there would be nothing but blurry shapes refusing to resolve into an image. A groan slipped out of his throat instead and long fingers cupped the back of his head, hunting the cringing feeling down and shooing it away.

Another groan erupted itself but this time it was slabbery. Deep intakes of breaths catching in the way of saliva and producing shaky exhales. John's jaw clenched as another, fuller wave washed through him, bringing tailspin in tow. He could feel cool dampness from where his brows were pressed against the warm heat of a wetted area on white shirt. The fingers on his neckline crawled themselves through his hair, ever the gentlest. 

_Gentlest, really? One could say nimble, but gentle?_

“Shut. Up!”

The chest he was pressed at puffed stiffly. The fingers stopped short in his hair, slightly mid-air and there was no breeze through his right ear; breathing stopped. _No, no. Not again._ He cursed himself and clunched on the gaunt waist of Sherlock - _Sherlock!_ \- with fervour energy, riveting them together for dear life. His own breaths turning sharp at their edges once again, catching on sounds he could not stifle even if he tried. He could hear his vocal cords screeching with fever. Now, his throat was full with searing. A pain bubbling inside, trying its way out. “Please,” he rowned, though oblivious as to what he was calling for. 

Soon enough the mission critical breathing resurged itself in the wake of a soft “Oh.” _Gentle_ fingers were back again on the game, caring their way through strands on his skull. The other hand on the small of his back pulled him closer still, and then they were rocking. Dimly, he could make out low murmurs of sympathies against his temple. That deep rich acoustic phenomenon against his temple... There was a hot, fleeting press of lips to his hairline, then those lips were back on his temple to continue their quiet mumbles. Wafting on his burning skin. Leaving room for hypersensitivity to linger. 

What was one supposed to do when they were on the fly? Because there was a long gone but very much alive Sherlock standing in his-

_Our._

-their parlour with his hot breath down his temple and long fingers up his skull and- and...

  
With his eyes still shut, voice hushed, John said, “Sherlock,” and could hear the shake in his own voice. It was surprising that he wasn’t fuming the anger that was clandestinely bulking within him already. He tried uttering an acrid “Why today-” which didn't quite come out as an inquiry as he meant it to be though he wasn’t even sure if he meant it to be. Because, really, who cared if it was today or any other day as long as he came. And he did, came back. From the dead. God, he could still be dreaming and that was the very last thing he would ever want. 

// TBC //


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They don't suit you.”
> 
> “What?” A glint of try in the depth.
> 
> “Stop your face.”
> 
> “I- I don’t...”
> 
> (Cheer up to let me cheer up. Rest isn’t right.)

“You- you... You can’t just cajole your way into my life like this!” He was whining at him, voice going up and catching at all vowels. After a breathy pause, “And you have to know you can’t cajole your way out of my life like that,” he added, shoulders slouched in tire, “you can’t...”

  
Sherlock's face was possibly a mirror of his own. Eyes stiff but full. “I know, John. _Now_ , I know.” His voice was soft, coloured with a note of something hesitant, almost uncertain.

  
John only huffed some sort of bitter laugh and broke eye contact to clench his jaw and look at the wall. His fingers fluttering and clenching by his sides, plucking at the air in a futile effort to grasp onto it like a life raft.

  
Before he could descend into a spiral lot of loathing, those familiar clamps wound around his forearms once more. The pale face brought itself in John's view. It almost begged, an inner exclamation conveying, expression pulling on gossamers to communicate John.

  
_Let him. He needs that gravity. Let me._

  
“But was it so hard to-” John started in a heat only to be cut off by Sherlock.

  
“To let you know of my existence would have compromised yours! And I am back now, am I not?” His face had turned a full red with prominent veins on his forehead, hell, even in his eyes. He gave another deep utterance -a plea- of “John...” 

  
What was going through John's sour mind has never been the point of importance in their companionship which went on for some months before Sherlock took a leap off his life. That’s a leap now known as imitation. Forgery. Anyhow, it was apparently time for his thought to become the significance according to the man in front of him. No matter however funny and funky, chimed in John's sour mind because, after all, it was now Significant. 

  
The ache kept disturbing his senses. John wanted nothing more than to except him but the ache was there, and quite indignant at that. There was a want of huffing and ignorance. A want of storming and surging on with an energy so keyed up. Spurt a burner and be off because that was what one was supposed to do. _Right?_

  
_You can but you wouldn’t. That’s not what we want._

  
His insides were coiling round that burner begging to gush out. Disgusting feeling if organs ever dare touch it. More ache. He looked back in to the eyes of depth. No fiction was there. Long threads of lashes damp but no yarns to spin. Pure plea swelled in notes of chagrin. Grave remorse. Too many lines of furrow on that long face. They don’t suit him. Never did.

  
“They don't suit you.”

  
“What?” A glint of try in the depth.

  
“Stop your face.”

  
“I- I don’t...” 

  
_John, he doesn’t follow. Spare him from the misery._

  
“As if he spared me.” He didn’t meant to taste acid in his words. Not now. He was to except. “Your expression,” he tried, “stop looking sad. Doesn’t work for the mood.” (Cheer up to let me cheer up. Rest isn’t right.)

  
John thought he made it worse for the furrowing deepened a level more. But then the glint of try in the depths twinkled and lips flickered themselves to a small smile. Just a pinch of it but it was enough, exactly the amount needed.

  
And John was to follow the lead.

  
His queer face had long forgotten to pull itself into an expression so gay that it made his lips chap and his cheeks ache but, no matter, it was worth the effect. Because now that Sherlock was back, all lively and incandescent, he needn’t deliver his retorts of frustrations to a fictitious image who was bereavement of a golden rush through his veins and it had been frustrating for John, with no flesh to get a hold of, no real hands to grasp and feel.

  
He brought a hand on Sherlock's lapels, his fingers a whisper on the expensive fabric. This time John didn’t just look at his face, he searched it. Searched for an indication, a token of ease and confirmation and maybe, hopefully, a relish-

  
As if on cue a low rumble intruded itself into the moment. It was John's crass stomach. How unseasonably it was? Why couldn’t it be more like Sherlock's? Always demanding, that fathead. It answered John's thoughts with another rumble and John was just a second away from retorting back at it when he realised that it wasn’t in fact his stomach with its gruff sounds but Sherlock with his rich, deep laugh. He laughed with him, for him.

_Spurt a burner and be off, indeed. No rags._

“Dinner?”

And who was he to decline this amazing man. Of course his answer was going to be, “God, yes. Starving.”

It didn’t matter it was long past dinner time, at 03.42 in the morning, in the midst of a much longed euphory, dine they did.

// _finish_ //

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this chapter written and waiting for so long, I just never had the appropriate time for actually reviewing (as I do my own betaing, if there's anything you see or may offer please don't hold back to drop it in the comments!). 
> 
> To be fair, this last chapter was not what I wanted. I never really intended for any action in the plot line, but rather in the emotional plane. Though, because it will be a while for me to get back on the writing I thought I'll be better off posting this. Who knows, I might come back and edit one day? Or write another one. Though I quite like the first chapter. Anyways. We'll see.
> 
> All my thanks to all who read and liked and disliked and commented and shared and criticised and - right yeah. Thank you with all my heart. 
> 
> Laters. (let's hope for that later to be soon)
> 
> Ps.: I didn't forget about "Her Miss, His Catch" if any of you read that. There is just a tiny bit left of the second chapter. Should be up soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to leave your opinions!


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